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Environmentalists push back on national shipping ballast standards

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) - Environmentalists tried to rally
opposition Thursday to a proposed national policy for cleansing
ship ballast water to kill invasive species, contending it is too
weak and would pre-empt stronger state and federal rules.

The U.S. House was expected to vote as early as Friday on the
measure, which comes as the Environmental Protection Agency is
preparing to release its own regulations of ship ballast - a
leading culprit in the spread of invaders such as zebra and quagga
mussels in the Great Lakes and ocean coastal waters.

Sponsored by Rep. Frank LoBiondo, a New Jersey Republican, the
bill would adopt a standard proposed by the International Maritime
Organization limiting the number of live organisms that would be
permitted in ballast water. Vessel operators would have to install
technology to meet the standard.

The shipping industry has pushed for a single nationwide policy,
saying the current patchwork of more than two dozen state and
tribal regulatory systems is unworkable because vessels move
constantly from one jurisdiction to another.

Great Lakes shippers are particularly unhappy about New York
rules that set live-organism limits 100 times tougher for existing
ships than those under the international standard. For newly built
ships, New York's standards would be 1,000 times stronger. State
officials have postponed the effective date to 2013, giving
shippers more time to comply.

The industry says technology to meet the New York requirements
doesn't exist. Shippers say the state's strict limits could close
the Great Lakes to oceangoing vessels, since they must pass through
New York waters to reach the rest of the system.

"While individual state standards and those set by the Clean
Water Act function well for factories that are fixed in one
location, it simply does not work for vessels engaged in interstate
or international commerce," LoBiondo said.

Environmental groups said the bill would prevent EPA and the
U.S. Coast Guard, which is also developing ballast rules, from
imposing standards tough enough to make sure no more exotic species
reach the Great Lakes. About two-thirds of the 185 invasive species
in the lakes are believed to have arrived in ballast water. They've
done billions in damages and are implicated in a variety of
ecological problems, from runaway algae blooms to a shortage of
plankton crucial for the aquatic food web.

"This bill is designed to keep the shipping industry off the
hook and violates states' right to protect their waters from
invasive species," said Marc Smith, senior policy manager for the
Naional Wildlife Federation's Great Lakes office.

The measure would allow EPA to strengthen the federal standard
beginning in 2016, or earlier if a state requests it, according to
LoBiondo's office.

But the wildlife group said the bill would make it "difficult,
if not impossible, to add new protections, even if the EPA and
other agencies determine that the (international) standard is not
doing the job."